Of all the people to turn religious, Fidel Castro is probably the last one would think about. While the old
communist and atheist cannot truly be said to have found religion, his behavior of late is a clear turn from the Marxist ideology that religion is the “opiate of the masses.”
Of all things, Fidel Castro wants to build a Russian Orthodox Church Cathedral in Havana. If there is a Cuban who is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, he or she is going to be quite lonely in that church.
Castro wants to build it as a gesture of Cuban-Russian friendship. Castro recently published a tribute to the church and received one of its envoys.
Castro called the church ”a spiritual force. In the critical moments of Russian history, it played an important role. When the Great Russian War began after the treacherous Nazi attack, Stalin turned to it in support of the workers and peasants that the October Revolution made owners of the factories and the land.”
Maybe the old communist is getting worried about his mortality. Then again, maybe he just wants to thank his Russian benefactors for the last 50 years. Still, it is odd to build a foreign church in a land of official non-believers, especially when none of them adheres to the foreign religion. Perhaps he is just getting senile. No, we will know that when he wants to put a McDonalds in Havana.
